THE EFFECTS OF GLIAL CELL LINE-DERIVED NEUROTROPHIC FACTOR (GDNF) ON FUNCTIONAL REGENERATION OF TRANSECTED FEMORAL NERVE

Femoral nerve injury is still a challenge because of the lack of effective treatments. In this research, a new drug delivery system is built, which contains a tube of polylactic acid-trimethylene carbonate (PA-TC) equipped with Glial cell line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) and examined its capability to facilitate functional recovery in femoral nerve injury. At the bottom of the transected femoral nerve in rats, a tube injected with GDNF will be installed. Assessment of functional recovery will be made at the fourth, the eight, and twelfth weeks after injury. Compared with animals remedied by antilogous nerve grafting (p < 0.05), those animals treated with the PA-TC tube loaded with GDNF showed improvement of recovery in muscle action potentials and regenerated fiber area. As a result, we can conclude that drug delivery system which induced nerve regeneration following femoral nerve transaction takes better effects than which induced by antilogous nerve grafting. It is possible to have great potential to be applied in nerve regeneration of femoral nerve transection injury.